Nuclear fusion has long been the energy world’s moonshot, a reaction so powerful and so difficult to tame that many ...

The time is nigh for nuclear clocks. In a first, scientists have used a tabletop laser to bump an atomic nucleus into a higher energy state. It’s a feat that sets scientists on a path toward creating ...

Researchers from TUM, working at CERN, have made a groundbreaking discovery that reveals how deuterons are formed. Another long-standing question in particle physics has been answered. Scientists ...

For decades, atomic clocks have provided the most stable means of timekeeping. They measure time by oscillating in step with ...

The nucleus of an atom is now the modern version of sand flowing through an hourglass. Researchers have spent 15 years trying to increase accuracy in timekeeping. The U.S. standard currently relies on ...

In 2008, a team of UCLA-led scientists proposed a scheme to use a laser to excite the nucleus of thorium atoms to realize extremely accurate, portable clocks. Last year, they realized this ...

Quantum computers, systems that process information leveraging quantum mechanical effects, have the potential of ...

Atomic clocks are the most accurate timekeepers we have, losing only seconds across billions of years. But apparently that’s not accurate enough – nuclear clocks could steal their thunder, speeding up ...

Nobel laureate Otto Hahn is credited with the discovery of nuclear fission. Fission is one of the most important discoveries of the 20th century, yet Hahn considered something else to be his best ...

Atomic, molecular and optical physics lies at the intersection of quantum mechanics and electromagnetic theory, providing the fundamental framework for our understanding of matter and light.